Good start, but then it gets ruined

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is a 25-minute short film from six years ago and somehow connected to Zack Snyder's Watchmen movie. I have not seen this one, so I cannot go into more detail here about what exactly this connection is like. Anyway, there is a ship accident early on in the movie and everybody dies except our protagonist. Then, afterward, the Black Freighter, mentioned in the title becomes a crucial part of the story. Our hero tries to get home as quickly as possible on a raft, but realizes it is pointless to get there and warn everybody that the dead freighter is going to come as well, a ship packed with murderous undead pirates who are going to kill everybody. Yet, despite knowing he is too slow, he still decides to get home and see what happened to his village, to his wife and child. And he does succeed. but what is he going to find?I have to say I enjoyed watching this short movie. I liked how we heard the protagonist's thoughts (Gerard Butler's deep voice) during the entire 25 minutes. The animation is nicely done too and there is a final plot twist which wasn't really expected and that is also why you could watch this half hour several times. Recommended.

When they finally turned the classic comic book series Watchmen into a movie, they had to leave a lot of stuff out. You may find that surprising if you've only seen the film, given how long, detailed and dense it was already. But as one of the most complex stories every written in comic book history, there was a lot they had to skip. Instead of simply forgetting about that stuff, they've taken most of it and turned it into two short films. They're both must-sees if you were a fan of the movie or the comic. Taken on their own merits, however, one of them is must better than the other.Tales of the Black Freighter was a comic-within-the-comic that told the story of the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the infamous Black Freighter and the horrible, mad lengths he goes to in order to save himself and protect his family. They've turned the comic story into roughly a half-hour long cartoon with some decent animation and good voice work by Gerard Butler as the sole survivor. In making it into a cartoon, unfortunately, the writers and directors leave out most of the powerful and creepy narration that make the original work so striking. The comic-within-the-comic was also thematically connected extensively and intimately with the main story of Watchmen and severing that union robs Tales of the Black Freighter of a lot of its purpose and force.Under the Hood is based on text pieces that ran in the original comic concerning the autobiography of Nite Owl I, Hollis Mason (Stephen McHattie). That was the old guy talking with Dan Dreiberg at the start of the movie. He was one of the original masked adventurers of the 1940s who eventually hung up his mask and tights and wrote a book about what he did and why he did it. In the comic, excerpts from the book were used to flesh out and reinforce many of the themes Alan Moore was driving at in the series. It's been adapted for the screen as an episode of a TV news show about Hollis Mason and his book. Host Larry Culpepper (Ted Friend) talks with Mason, the former Silk Spectre, Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino), former super-villain Moloch (Matt Frewer) and others about the book and the nature of super-heroes in the real world.Under the Hood is much better than Tales of the Black Freighter. It deals more directly and explicitly with much of Alan Moore's deconstructive take on super-heroes and heroism in general, and is therefore hampered less by being detached from the main story. There are also some very good performances by Stephen McHattie, Carla Gugino, Matt Frewer and Rob LaBelle as Doctor Manhattan's former sidekick. They show the twin sides of the super-hero as presented in Watchmen; the human dimension concerned with celebrity and personal drive and desire, and the sociological perspective of how the existence of such entities would interact with and change the larger world.I imagine the idea is that both these films will eventually be re-integrated into the main Watchmen movie in a special edition DVD. Hollywood loves to sell people the same thing over and over again. I'm not sure it'll be worth getting that DVD because adding this stuff into the movie would make it 4 hours long or more. These works, especially Tales of the Black Freighter, would also not fit alongside some of the changes made in adapting the comic to the screen.If you liked Watchmen, the comic or the movie, I suggest you give this thing a rent and enjoy this stuff on its own.

I regard this more as something stand alone than something that accompanies The Watchmen. It is the perfect example of an animated short. The entire plot is chilling from start to end especially with Butlers sterling performance as the Sea Captain. The animation i was quite surprised how much i actually liked it as i did not expect a great deal of detail- but it looks extremely effective. I can only hope in the directors cut of Watchmen that it makes an appearance between the film as it did in the graphic novel. Though it is unfair to constantly relate this back to the film as it is its own work and has its own merits.For me it is exactly what i wanted it to be, a haunting exploration of the inner mind.

As you will know from reading my earlier review of Watchmen, I wasn't overly impressed. Snyder's attempts to shoehorn as much of the book into his film resulted in a confusing mess. At least he was smart enough not to try and fit 'Tales of the Black Freighter' in too. Instead, it was made into this 25 minute animation by Mike Smith and Daniel DelPurgatorio.The story originated as a comic book within a comic book, read by a kid who uses the same news stand as Rorschach. It follows a Mariner (Gerard Butler) whose ship is blown to smithereens and whose crew are all slain by Pirates from the dreaded Black freighter. He makes his way to a nearby deserted island, just in time to watch the bloated corpses of his crew wash up on shore.Whilst there he figures that the pirates are most likely pillaging his home town and his family are in danger. He decides to build a raft from trees and a sail that he finds his friend wrapped in. He grimly realises the swollen, gas filled bodies lying on the beach will provide him with the perfect ballast to keep him afloat. And be begins tying them to his raft.Sailing on his grotesque vessel, he heads for home. Eating any seabirds who fly down close enough trying to peck at the eyeballs of his building material. He perilously drinks handfuls of sea water, sending him further and further into delusion. His dead friend counsels him from beyond the grave, telling him it's too late to save his family back home and he should go back. But like a certain character in the main book, the Mariner is intent on his mission. It's no mistake that the bloodied sails on his raft resemble an ink-blot.After surviving a shark attack and washing up on familiar shores, he has convinced himself that the Pirates have been and plundered his town. So convinced that he murders innocents he suspects have betrayed his people to the pirates. He stalks into his own house, believing that pirates lie in the beds of his wife and daughters and prepares to kill them.Unlike the main book, Black Freighter is complex in its simplicity. You have the simple story of a man heading home to save his loved ones, who, through self-delusion, becomes the very monster that threatens them. The complexities lie in the confused and tortured Mariner. His soul is polluted and corrupted by the vengeance in his heart, so much so, that he becomes worse than his enemy.Gerard Butler, offered the role because Zack Snyder couldn't find him a part in Watchmen, fits perfect. His nuanced Scottish growl starts off simpering and self-sympathetic before ending with the lunatic howls of a madman. There is no better voice.The animation is similar in style to Fist of the North Star, the 1986 movie, with dark shadows and a lot of high contrast visuals. The sea is as black as ink and the sun crimson on the horizon. It feels very old school compared to modern anime's like Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell.In 25 minutes this film achieves what Watchmen couldn't do in nearly three hours. A chilling, competent and compelling adaptation of Alan Moore's work.Verdict 8/10 Better than the film it accompanies.